This invention relates to a piano provided with a sound-enhancing system.
Pianos of the upright type and particularly those of so-called spinet type are not noted for the quality of their sound. In comparison with the fine concert grand or even of a baby grand of distinguished manufacture, the spinet upright pianos give forth a relatively pale sound. Yet, many people living in relatively cramped quarters or with relatively small incomes, can neither afford the really fine pianos nor find a place to put them.
An important object of the present invention is to provide a piano of the upright spinet type with a sound-enhancing system which makes it sound far better to most hearers, even though it is small and located probably in a small room up against a wall.
A problem solved by the present invention is to impart to such a small, relatively inexpensive piano a quality of sound that sounds greatly better to most people.
Heretofore, pickups have been mounted on pianos with an amplifier completely separate from them, usually a large and unwieldly device and with a large loud speaker which had to be set somewhere else in the room. This is no great advantage to one having cramped space. When pickups, amplifiers, and loudspeakers have been mounted inside the piano, they have involved major reconstruction of the piano and have taken up a large amount of space. Moreover, usually they have been adapted to grand pianos rather than to small uprights.
Furthermore, when one attempts to apply amplification to a piano, one encounters a feedback problem. The output from the loudspeakers tends to act on the sounding board of the piano to produce sound there which distorts the tone of the piano and results in further feedback to affect the sounding board and produce further distortion.
Another type of feedback tends to result when ordinary microphones are installed in a piano, and, once again, significant tone distortion results, so that the final sound output is quite unsatisfactory.
This invention combines an already-manufactured piano with an electronic pickup, amplification, and speaker system that increases the volume or sound and apparently its quality also.